Pforten des Himmels

I saw this film for the first time about 2 years ago on IFC and thankfully I videotaped it. Since then, I've watched it 10 or 11 times and it always fascinates me. I especially like the last third of the film in which we meet the harberts family who own the Bubbling Well Pet Cemetary in Nappa Valley. They all seem so sincere and at the same time they crack me up. Errol Morris just has a way of letting real life people go on and on about a subject without it ever becoming boring...

"Gates of Heaven" is a 1978 film by acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris, which ostensibly is about the concept of the pet cemetery. Well, we *do* learn a little bit about the ins and outs of this particular niche business, but mostly, this non-fiction feature is about people, and getting to know their stories. They discuss their philosophies, approaches to problems, their motivations, their back stories, etc. And we also get some anecdotes from incidental characters regarding their beloved animal companions.

"Gates of Heaven" wouldn't suit all tastes. Morris isn't too concerned with making it particularly cinematic, and it mostly consists of people sitting down and giving interviews straight to an unmoving camera. This might seem boring to some people, but for this viewer, the individuals speaking here are people worth getting to know. It's pleasant to hear them speak, and they do so from the heart.

There are two basic stories: one of a pet cemetery that was the dream of a man named Floyd "Mac" McClure. Unfortunately, his dream didn't pan out. Then we hear about the family whose pet cemetery has been successful because they supposedly follow "good business practices".

We also get an earful about the "rendering" business, of taking dead animals and turning them into animal by-products. (Such as glue.) This will undoubtedly sound ghoulish to many viewers.

Ultimately, "Gates of Heaven" works because it is sensitive to the love that many humans have for their faithful animal companions - dogs, cats, birds, rodents, fish, etc. So the documentary does have resonance. While some people may question the priorities of those who pay big money to give their pets a proper send-off, the material is definitely relatable to others.

A good film with heart that does give its audience some poignant things to think about.

Seven out of 10.

I picked a bad time to watch this movie. I just finished watching "Napoleon Dynamite," where it's unclear whether we're supposed to relate to the eccentric characters or pity and despise them. That film got me to thinking about other movies that seem to cast a condescending eye on the people involved, specifically "Waiting for Guffman," a fake documentary about small-town folk who want to take their community-theater production to Broadway, and "American Movie," a real documentary about people making a cheap horror film.

And now I watch this documentary, which tells the story of two pet cemeteries in California. And again it's unclear how the filmmaker feels about the people we meet, or how we're supposed to feel about them. Errol Morris, who followed this initial success with several other well-regarded documentaries – like "The Thin Blue Line" and "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control" – has an unobtrusive style here. He simply points the camera at people and let's them talk in long, rambling monologues. We never see or hear him, but of course his attitude is reflected in what material he chooses, how he edits it – and in the subject of the movie in the first place.

We first meet Floyd McClure, a paraplegic with a dream to create a pet cemetery. One inspiration is the death of his collie years before; and the other is the local rendering plant, which turns animals into glue. He rages against this hellish factory, not seeing the irony in noting that he couldn't smell the meat on his own table for the stench emanating from the place. He realizes his dream, only to see it fail. Then we visit a successful pet cemetery, run by a father and his two sons. One is a frustrated musician, nursing a broken heart. The other is joining the family business after selling insurance in Salt Lake City. Throughout, we also meet the people who have buried their pets.

Morris allows a lot of his subjects to cast themselves in a bad or ridiculous light. The man who runs the rendering department admits lying to the public whenever they have a beloved zoo animal. And though he's very defensive about his line of work, he can't suppress himself from calling the people who grieve over their dead pets "moaners." The older son at the successful cemetery is shown in his office, in which trophies line the desk and the shelves behind him. He claims a job applicant was impressed and inspired by the trophies. Throughout, he endlessly spouts clichés from motivational books.

Oddly, I didn't cringe as much at the people who spent thousands of dollars to bury their pets. Somehow they came off as silly, yet ennobled by their love for their animals.

Since this movie we've been treated to an endless stream of reality TV and Christopher Guest mockumentaries and Dave Letterman bits where the average guy on the street is put in the spotlight only to be made a fool of. I know a lot of people see this film as beautiful and full of interesting philosophical questions – Roger Ebert, who puts this on his all-time ten best list, prominently among them. Maybe I was in the wrong frame of mind, but I didn't enjoy it.

GATES OF HEAVEN is one of those fascinating films that no matter how many times you see, the mysteries contained in it only get deeper. The film is a documentary about pet cemeteries, but what may have turned into a freak show- a movie about people who value pets so much they pay thousands of dollars to bury them- becomes an inspection of the human soul. The film is a deep, dark chasm of human emotion. Errol Morris starts his famous documentary style of just letting people talk. Unlike Michael Moore or Nick Broomfield, who are as much the subject of their own documentaries as their directors, we never see or even hear Morris' voice. He just lets the people tell their story their way. The film is haunting and will stay with the viewer long after it's over. It truly is a landmark film in movie history. Roger Ebert was not overstating this movies genius when he named it one of the ten best films of all time. My Grade: 10/10

Ebert put this film on his top 10 films of all time list. Now for this film to be up there with Citizen Kane and The Third Man, I was expecting to be thrown from my seat... that didn't happen.

I don't know how to rate this film. All throughout the doc, I didn't know what to make of it. The people were strangely saying very, very profound things, but I had to try hard to discard their appearance and mannerisms. I have a fear that the antics of Christopher Guest among others mocking simple people puts this film as a disadvantage. Halfway though I asked myself "Is this a comedy that I'm just not getting?" It had a Guffman air to it, which is to simply let the people talk and expect you to laugh. But is wasn't. I listened extra hard and started to see that it clearly did not show any comedic elements, but I still didn't know what to make of it. This film requires multiple viewings, but I don't really wanna see it again.

Ebert is right, this film is about much, much, much more than a Pet Cemetary. However, it is no where near one of the 10 greatest films of all time. Ebert must have lost a lot or pets or have a fixation on that movie theater in the sky.